Goal Setting For Web Professionals

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Posted on 3.03.2008

Goal Setting For Web Professionals

1&1 announced today they have registered 10 million domains. In less
than 3 years, 1&1 has doubled the number of domains it has registered with a 50/50 consumer and business user base while increasing their
registered domains in the U.S. by 46 percent in the past year alone.

What does this have to do with you? As someone responsible for the
success of a website, it's necessary to set goals. You can bet that 1&1, perhaps the largest hosting provider of its kind, didn't say let's sell a lot of domains and get rich. Instead, they most likely set a goal such as increasing domain sales by 50%.

Too often I hear from readers
who get bogged down in specific tasks but have no real plan on how to make these
goals (and dreams) a reality. The Web is flush with goal-setting gurus for a
reason - we need them. We need them to tell us to write down our goals and track
our progress. We need them to tell us that creating these work/life to-do lists
helps us see what's important, heightens our commitment, identifeis pitfalls, finds trends
and ultimately celebrates our success.

So how do get started with goal tracking? Perhaps the most recognizable (and
simplest) free utility for the process is
Joe's Goal. Unlike most other goal-setting applications that are set-up for
"episodic goals" (when the goals are complete), Joe's Goals are set up to track
ongoing goals. In relation to Web success, you may want to set up goals such as
write a 300-word blog post using keywords that describe your business every day,
or get one inbound link every day, or even find a new friend within a social
network.

The interface is a simple grid with two kinds of goals: Good (got some exercise) and
bad (skipped class). Clicking on a grid square will add a checkmark (good goals)
or an X (bad ones) icon, and clicking on an icon makes it disappear. You can add
as many as you want to any grid square, and at the bottom of the grid, your
accomplishments are tallied for a "daily score." And to keep yourself honest,
you can share your goals with your friends. One thing I really like about Joe's
Goals is that at the very top of the front page, before you've registered or
signed in, there's a demo grid that you can play with to get a feel for the
service.